A Shining Light
by paper-rose16
Summary: "Tell us about the old days, Daddy," she says seriously. She loves anything to do with the old days, when The Hunters walked the earth. Behind her back, she doesn't see Mommy shake her head ever so slightly over the pie. Post-apoc AU.


**A Shining Light**

**

* * *

**

Daddy tucks her in at night under the watch of the ever red sky. Louise Walker curls beneath the covers and waits for his rough kiss and for his "Sleep tight Pumpkin, 'cause they're watching over you" before she closes her eyes.

"Who is?" she always asks. She smiles, because this is their secret, their little dance. Louise suspects not even Mommy knows about what they whisper to each other every night in place of the customary anti-possession spell, like these words are the only protection they need.

"They are," he answers with a smile of his own. "_Them_. The Hunters."

Once upon a time, she'd heard, people used to say that angels were watching over you. But nobody mentions the angels anymore.

* * *

Louise wakes up to the same sky that she said good night to – the red one. She's never known it to be any other shade. She thinks that it should be one of those never changing things, like the brown fields and the smoky gray air, that remain just because it would scare everybody were it to leave. People don't like being scared, they don't miss it anymore; although her daddy says that years ago when her great-great relatives were born, the way the world is now scared them into doing lots of dangerous things.

There are things called 'Pictures' hidden around the house. Really, they are not supposed to have them. 'Pictures' were supposed to be burned long, long ago when the sky turned red. It was to keep people from missing the blue, although Louise doesn't know how anybody liked the blue in the first place. It looked odd, like watered down blueberries, and Louise doesn't much like blueberries, especially the non-watered down kind.

One of the 'Pictures' is of the sky, when things called 'Clouds' existed too. This one is her least favourite. One is of a child riding a red tricycle, and she likes this one a little bit better. But her favourite, her favourite 'Pictures', the one with the crinkles from being held too much and which is discoloured by old age, is also the strangest of all of them. Daddy doesn't know she has this one – he wouldn't like knowing it – and she keeps it safe inside her shoebox where only she can find it.

Her favourite 'Pictures' is the one with the group of men in front of the camp. They hold guns like The Hunters did. Louise thinks the men might be The Hunters and she's glad a lot that her great-great relatives kept it from burning. If people can remember The Hunters, one day there might be more.

* * *

"Tell us a story, Daddy," she says. She's sitting on the floor and little Jamie's sitting on his knee. Mommy is baking some pies in their old cooking oven and listening from the next room.

Daddy is in his chair. He smiles at her, the scar crossing his bottom lip stretching and thinning, and he pats little Jamie on the bum to move him into a more comfortable position. "Which would you like me to tell, Princess?"

"The kitty one, the kitty one!" her brother cries. Louise frowns. She's never understood why Jamie would want to listen to a story about make-believe creatures when they could hear something so much more real.

"Tell us about the old days, Daddy," she says seriously. Louise loves anything to do with the old days, when The Hunters walked the earth. Behind her back, she doesn't see Mommy shake her head ever so slightly over the pie.

"Not right now," he replies, looking at Mommy. He tells the story of how all the kitties and doggies used to roam the world; but once it's done, and she's going to play outside before curfew, he whispers another of their secrets into her ear: "Later, Princess."

* * *

She and Sarah Beth made up a song. Sarah Beth is her best friend in the whole world because she's fun, and she loves The Hunters just as much as Louise. Sarah Beth also has violet-coloured eyes, and they are the prettiest eyes that either of them has ever seen. Louise's eyes are brown and plain.

They use a frayed yellow rope left over from before the day the sky turned red, having to tie one end of it to the railing on the porch of the compound's office building because there are only the two of them playing. The rope is barely long enough to skip with, but they've used it many times before. Together, they chant their song as Louise skips and Sarah Beth turns.

_Salt! Silver!  
Iron and charm!  
Holy water, holy water!  
Dead man's blood!_

Her blonde pigtails are flying behind her. Louise feels like she's flying, too, even though flying is reserved for the moon.

_Salt! Silver!  
Guns and miles!  
Holy water! Holy water!  
Jerusalem's oil!_

It's a dangerous game to sing their song; any mention of the things that they shout could earn them what she's heard other grown-ups around the compound call Host Duty. Louise doesn't want to get Host Duty; to live with a nasty demon inside of her. But that's only if they get caught.

_It's everything a good Hunter needs, to do his job and save us please!  
1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4_

_Which Hunter will you be?  
John ... Bobby ... Sam ... Dean!_

They repeat the names that children have only heard through whispers and keyholes over and over until Louise stumbles and the rope catches on her foot just as she's chanting _Sam_ again_._ She untangles her foot slowly and takes the untied end of the rope from Sarah Beth so that she can have a turn. They are only to _Salt! Silver! Guns and miles _when the office door slams open and the warden appears, sweat coursing his brow and his huge temple vein throbbing. He chases them down the dirt road shrieking, "Away! Away, you hooligans, I've enough of your nonsensical chatter!" until he stops, huffing and pressing on his lungs, his face bright pink with fever.

She and Sarah Beth run, giggling, until they reach home.

* * *

"I want to be a Hunter when I'm older."

"Pumpkin," her daddy says slowly, sadly. "All of The Hunters are extinct. Have been for a long time."

"Then I'll be the first," she declares. Outside, the moon is coming. "I'll train others to join me and when the world is saved, we won't have to live in the compound anymore. We could go anywhere."

"And, let me guess, the sky will look like blueberries again?" he teases. His slim fingers find her stomach and tickle until she has to stop herself rolling off the bed.

"No." She scrunches up her nose. She still doesn't like blueberries. He laughs along with her.

His face sobers. She traces his scar, like she's seen Mommy doing so many times before. "It's a nice wish," he says. "It was their wish as well."

He kisses her on the forehead, his whiskery beard scratching her fair skin, and says his parting line. She asks her question and he says, "The Hunters are watching over you." For once, she wishes he'd change it; she doesn't believe all The Hunters are passed. As soon as he closes the door and the sound of his feet padding along the floorboards has disappeared, she reaches under the bed and withdraws her book. It's very old – books haven't been made since the old days, and any belonging to the Winchester Gospel, like hers, are strictly forbidden – and flips to an earmarked page. A passage is scrawled inside in faded ink, its author long dead. She's pretty sure nobody was ever meant to find it.

_And all of God's angels and all of God's men  
couldn't put the Winchesters together again._

It's kind of funny, if not at all hopeful; it's lots sad. Everybody knows the legends: of how the brothers tried and failed, and as a result the land came to ruin. She'd rather not think of God or angels; would prefer to believe that someone, sometime, may change things. Tucked in her bed, Louise doesn't know that one day an angel in a tattered trench coat, the one good angel, will come to her and teach her all the things she so wishes to know. She doesn't know that she still has work to do in this world.

When she looks out the window and watches the Demon Patrol pass by, making sure all the humans are locked up tight indoors, she just wonders if she will live to see the day when the world is ready for The Hunters once more.


End file.
